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Friday, June 30, 2017

Happy end-of-June! I logged 117.25 miles in June, which I am pleased about. I was expecting June to be the month with the least amount of miles in 2017 but it just beat out January (117.21 miles).

June historically is a very low mileage month for me, likely because I have had difficulty getting back into consistent mileage after spring marathons. Last year, I also was put in a boot for a stress reaction mid-June.

June 2015 mileage = 61.77 miles
June 2016 mileage = 42.58 miles

Overall, I am pleased with getting back on the consistency train.

Looking forward to July, I have two races on the calendar. On July 8 I have a duathlon (which heads up - I have done zero cycling for. Zero). On July 23 I have a road 10K. Outside of that, I will be continuing with the Hanson's Advanced Half Marathon Plan.

Monday, June 26, 2017

Week two was fun to get back into the "Hansons" swing of things. My first track workout in a long while was AWESOME! My first tempo run in a long while was not. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. My legs definitely felt tired this whole week and I'm sure will take a bit to get used to being on a training plan again.Monday, June 19Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 12 x 400 at 5k/10k pace with 400 m recovery in between, 1.5 mile cool down

What I do: I slept through my alarm. I could have done this after kids were in bed at night but I knew I would have a hard time getting to sleep so I pushed it off a day.

Tuesday, Jun 20Plan says: 0 miles

What I do: Get my a** out of bed. It was a tough one because my son had gotten up in the middle of the night and that always throws me off but I did it. The high school track is 1.8 miles from our house so I ran there and home for my warm up and cool down. I was pleasantly surprised at how good these felt and how fast they were. My goal was 1:33 for the 400s. Crushed it.

1.8 mile cool down, 14:18 (7:57 avg pace)
Total: 9.43 miles
I had to do this workout on February 20 as part of marathon training and I was curious how these paces compared since I had the same goal pace of 1:33 then. My 400s were significantly faster in June! The caveat being that I did these on the road in February and on a track in June. Here are my February 400s:

1:35
1:36
1:31
1:29
1:30
1:30
1:32
1:32
1:36
1:32
1:31
1:31

Wednesday, June 21Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 3 miles at half-marathon pace (6:44), 1.5 mile cool down
What I do: Oh the return of tempo run Wednesdays. My legs felt tired when I woke up in the early morning to do this. (YES! I woke up early two days in a row!) But I knew I had to get it done so that my legs could rest enough for my race on Saturday.

1.5 mile warm up, 12:39 (8:26 avg pace)

Yep. No problem getting over 8:00 miles on that one!

3 mile tempo, 19:49 (6:36 avg pace)
By the numbers this looks good but it was a bit of a disaster. I chugged along and hit my first mile in 6:51. Rather than just let it ride and let the pace come, I freaked out that it was "slow" and kicked it in and then realized that I had kicked it in too much. Stop. Mental Reset. Continue. Second mile was 6:42. Continued mental freakout that it felt too hard, but had to keep pushing. Felt like I was dying. Stop. Mental Reset. Continue. Third mile, 6:14.

So yes. There continues to be some work to be done. All of my mental prowess that I developed in the months leading up to the marathon seems to be gone, or at least diminished.

Friday, June 23Plan says: 4 miles easyWhat I do: After getting up pre-5:00 am for three days in a row, I was bound to sleep in. Thus, I did this after work. I only did 3 easy miles on account of the fact I had a race in the morning.

3 miles, 23:51 (7:56 avg pace)

Saturday, June 24Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do: See Bigfoot Trail 10K Race Report and my bibrave.com review. I will say that after I read some articles re: trail racing vs. road racing, I feel a bit better about the race. You can lead the Type A runner to a trail, but you cannot undo competitive hard wiring in one race!

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Disclaimer: I received a free entry to the Bigfoot Trail race as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

My first trail race, the Bigfoot Trail 10K, was a success in that I ended up first female! My official time was 42:58 (6:55 avg pace). I came in 6th overall out of 97 10K runners. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had no expectations for this run. As I was running it though, I realized that this was a bit of a lie. I had expected to run faster than that. Honestly, my 5th mile clocked in at 7:12 and it took me about 0.25 miles to not think about all of the marathon miles that I logged that were faster than that.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning at 5:00 AM, although not because I wanted to get up that early. My alarm was set for 5:45. My son was ready to get the day started. I was running this race as a BibRave Pro, which meant that I had to wear my orange BibRave Pro jersey for the race. I got myself dressed, braided my hair, and went downstairs to get something to eat. The night before I had made a bottle of Gen UCan to store in the fridge (I think it tastes better this way...or at least I have fewer problems choking it down!). I brewed some coffee for the road and had a slice of wheat toast with cashew butter.

I had a little over one hour drive one way to get to Big Foot Beach State Park. It was a pretty easy drive from my house and I had a mug of coffee. I got to the park, paid $5 for parking and easily parked. I had an hour and fifteen minutes until race start. I should have brought a book!

Beautiful view!

Packet pickup took 30 seconds. They made it really easy by emailing me a QR code last week. The race featured water bottles in lieu of shirts. I went to the line of porta potties because I wanted to get one pit stop in before the crowds. I ended up walking a bit to check out the park, which was pretty. Then I came back and drank my Gen UCan, doused myself with Off! bug spray and made another pit stop. I still had 30 minutes to go so I decided to run a bit to shake my legs out. My legs still felt heavy. More runners were assembling but it was still a fairly small crowd. We lined up for the start and they played the National Anthem. They explained that one loop was a 5K and that 10K runners needed to do two laps. And then...we were off!

I felt I ran pretty conservatively to start. We ran on grass, then over a wooden bridge and then were on the groomed trails of the state park. Sections were very squishy and muddy and there were some roots to look out for, but overall, I didn't feel that it was a very technical course. It definitely was 98% on trails - there was a section of the loop that was on a service road but that was it. It was a nice balance of sun and shade. I did feel like I was lucky to not trip or fall - it is hard to run for a long time on grass! There was a downhill section that was muddy and filled in with wood chips. I just let it rip down it and then realized that was probably a foolish move. The race directors had warned me on Twitter about a little hill near the end of the loop. The first loop this hill didn't feel too rough. The second time through was a little tougher.

Part of the course

The course was well marked and featured two water/Nuun stops. My first mile beeped in at 6:54 but I didn't see it. I was running with a guy for most of the first loop and just tried to stay with him. Miles 2 and 3 were 6:48 and 6:49 according to my Garmin. According to the official timing, I did the first loop in 21:19 or 6:52 pace. The guy ditched me heading into the second loop and I was running by myself. I didn't see anyone else behind me.

By the time I started the 4th mile, I felt like I was going to puke. I really wanted to stop. The 4th mile was at 7:02 and 5th was 7:12. I ended up dumping a cup of water on my head at one of the water stops because I was so hot. I chugged along on the last mile (7:01) to cross the finish in 42:58. According to my Garmin, my finish was 43:01. I was excited to see my official time come in under 43.

The finish featured some more Nuun and water but no food, which I was disappointed about. There were no awards either - which maybe that is a trail race thing? I met another WI Bibrave Pro ( @pktrish on IG) and chatted with him. He also had never done a trail race and we agreed it was a good one for a beginner. The park was beautiful and you had views of the lake!

Overall, I thought this was a great race to try my hand at trail racing. It was easy to get to and well marked and organized.

1) It is a 10K. I had thought my last 10K was the 2004 Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta. (My time was 52:08 (8:23 avg pace)...let's just say I was not very consistent about running when I lived in Atlanta!). But I had forgotten about a 10K that I did shortly after we moved to Menomonee Falls in 2012. My time at that race was 45:03 (7:15). I have not participated in a 10K since 2012 as I was pretty enamored with 5ks for a while.

2) It is a trail run. I was deep into marathon training on the road when I registered for this race and I thought a trail race would be a fun change of pace.

All in all, this race is somewhat out of my comfort zone on both accounts - distance and terrain - and for that reason, I have zero expectations for it. I have no idea how fast I can run a 10K on a trail. No idea. I will be going into the race on tired legs. I had two tough workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and judging by how my legs felt on my run this morning, they will likely still be tired on race day. I signed up for the fun of trying something new and am trying to take that mindset into race day, which is altogether very different from my usual course of action, and honestly, somewhat refreshing.

It will be fun to see what the result is and fun to see how the whole experience is. I AM expecting the course to be beautiful as it runs through Big Foot Beach State Park.

Race start is 8:30 and packet pick up is available morning of, so I plan to leave my house at 6/6:30. Wish me luck!

You can still register for this race! Use code 'BibRaveBF17' for bonus water bottle when you register...and let me know that you will be there!

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

I had a fantastic track workout this morning and it occurred to me that I needed to figure out my half marathon goal pace before tomorrow's tempo workout. (In the Hanson plans, your tempo run pace is the same as your goal race pace.)

ARGH.

I suck at picking goal paces.

I think I did a good job picking my goal pace of 7:15 for marathon training, but that was a chart reading error. I was aiming for a 3:15 marathon. 7:15 per mile is equivalent to a 3:10 marathon and I ran a 3:11:09.

The last half-marathon I ran was in November 2016 and I set a PR of 1:29:22. This was a large PR for me at the time (4:09). I used Kara Goucher's half marathon training plan for Oiselle and had a goal pace of 7:00 mile (1:31 finish). 1:29:22 is a 6:49 pace average. I haven't analyzed my training extensively for that race, BUT my highest mileage week for that training was 35 miles. I will hit that in week 2 (of 18) for this half marathon.

My half-marathon is October 15 and is the same course (unless they change it) as last November's race.

I would like to believe that I will see a significant time drop in my half time if all goes well with the Hanson plan this time around. I put in my 5K time (from March) into a race equivalency calculator and came up with a half-marathon goal pace of 6:44. This is 5 seconds per mile faster than last fall, and would translate to a 1:28:16 finish.

Hmm.

I think I'm selling myself short with a 6:44 / 1:28:16. It doesn't excite me. (I do realize at some point I will not have huge PR gains!)

Hanson race equivalency to my 5K PR of 18:53 is a 1:26:52 or 6:38 pace. My 5K PR was set in May of 2016, which is over a year ago. However, this morning my fastest 400 (of 12) was at 5:20 avg pace and my slowest was 5:40 average pace and the majority in 5:30. And I felt AMAZING during this workout.

A 5:30 mile pace 5K is a 17:05. I'm not saying that I could run a 17:05 5K, but I feel like I have gotten a major fitness boost from last year. (And....after this morning, I really want to run a 5K!) This is all to say that I don't think that a 6:38 half marathon pace is that crazy.

If we want to get into crazy land, I would have to run 6:29 to break 1:25.

So that was fun. I think I will start with a 6:44 as my goal pace and see how that feels.

Monday, June 19, 2017

I'm back on a training plan. Half-marathon training started last week and it was a tough week. I was not/am not mentally prepared to start a grueling training plan yet. I may have mentioned this before, but when I signed up for the 10/15/17 half marathon, it seemed so far away. It still does. After the marathon, I was so excited to kick ass at the half marathon. The Hanson's book mentions that working on your half marathon is a good way to lower your marathon time. My experience thus far has shown that to be true - I PRed in the half marathon last fall...then PRed in the marathon in spring.
I wanted to try doing the Hanson's Advanced half-marathon training program, which is 18 weeks in length and thus, needed to start last week. It is a strange thing doing a training program for the second time. I made the mistake of looking at all the workouts and freaked out. The speed workouts are the exact same as the marathon speed workouts. Now, I LOVED the speed workouts, but felt like, "Oh man! Don't I get a break on these - I'm only training for half the distance!". Then I looked at the long runs and there are several long runs that are over 13 miles. WTF. Finally, while the Hanson's beginner marathon plan featured 6 weeks of EASY running (therefore, only 12 of the 19 weeks were "hard"), this advanced half-marathon plan only gives you one week of easy running, and I have now done it. Time to shift into high gear. This is what it means to be "advanced" I guess. All in all - these thoughts are not helping me, I know.

Last week was the lone "easy" week in the plan and it felt hard. There were several things that I didn't do. While I had gotten better at running slower paces on easy runs during marathon training, I seemed to have forgotten that. Many of my runs last week were me pushing myself to beat the clock and telling myself that I wasn't in shape if I couldn't hit that for an easy run. NOT HELPFUL. I pulled my head out of my ass for yesterday's run and it was enjoyable. It is hell running in heat and humidity. This I know. However, this knowledge wasn't enough to pull me out of bed most mornings. I am having a really hard time getting to bed before 10 pm lately! During marathon training, I was a machine. Clock strikes 9 PM, I'm in bed.

Just typing this I realized how much I am comparing this half marathon training to my recent marathon training experience. Comparison is the thief of joy, or something like that, right? I have to stop.

While I work on that, here is my recap of last week:Monday, June 12
Off

I slept through my alarm. There was no time to make up for the missed miles later in the day because my daughter had her cast removed, my son had an ENT appointment and I had a meeting a church in addition to work. Bleck.

Tuesday, Jun 13
Some late afternoon miles:

4 miles, 32:13 (8:00 avg pace)

Wednesday, June 14
First official day on the plan. I again moved the plan back a day so that I could do long runs on Saturdays instead of Sundays.

Plan says: 4 miles easy

What I do: 4.65 miles, 36:44 (7:54 avg pace)

Thursday, June 15Plan says: 4 miles easy

4 miles, 29:59 (7:29 avg pace)

Friday, June 16Plan says: 4 miles easy
What I do: 4.1 miles 32:26 (7:54 avg pace)

Saturday, June 17Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do: HOLY HOTNESS. I avoided running early morning and instead went out mid-afternoon. It was a shit storm. I was relentless in trying to keep this at a 7:30 pace, regardless of the heat, humidity and how I was feeling. That was dumb. Then I had a sunscreen fail which turned into a contacts issue which lead to a detour to a Dairy Queen bathroom to fix my eye.

6.0 miles, 44:57 (7:29 avg pace)

Sunday, June 18Plan says: 4 miles easy
What I do: It was Father's Day so I was up early not to run but to make my husband's favorite breakfast. I ended up running after the kids were in bed and it was much cooler outside so it was fine.

4 miles, 32:30 (8.07 avg pace)

Plan Miles: 22Total Weekly Miles: 26 miles

Sleep Data
Sense told me today that during the last 10 nights, I moved 43% less than the average person using Sense. About 6% of my sleep consists of agitated sleep. This is interesting because last week I had more agitated sleep than I typically do - I spent a few nights tossing and turning between the hours of 1 and 3 pm. Thus, the percentage of my "deep" sleep is lower than what it typically is, but apparently I am still getting better sleep than the average Sense user. One could argue that people with sleep issues are more likely to invest in a system like Sense.

My take on this is that I personally feel like I need a lot of quality sleep to feel good, no matter what other people need. In other words, it is not useful to me to compare myself to others (hmmm....I can reach this insight here but not always with running...hmmmm....) Yes, I get a lot of deep sleep and yes, I am hovering around the 7.5 hour range. But I still feel tired. I think the "magic" of a system like this is that it tracks things for you and allows you to see patterns. (Laura Vanderkam would be so proud of me right now.) I do not feel "tired" on days when I am closer to 8 hours of sleep, the majority of that being deep. Lucky for me, if I go to bed early, I can usually make this happen.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Another recovery week in the books. My goal was to do about the same amount of miles as last week - 20ish. I just hit the 20 mile mark.

Monday, June 5
Off

I slept through my alarm so no running that morning. I went to see Sheryl Sandburg on her Option B book tour with my mom that evening so it ended up being a rest day.

Tuesday, Jun 6
Again, slept through alarm so did some miles before my daughter got off the bus. This was my last "bus run" until the next school year!

3.52 miles, 26:54 (7:38 avg pace)

Wednesday, June 7
No morning run...again. Wednesday I have after-school care for the kids so I did my run after work. I ended up ALMOST stepping on a turtle on the run path near a pond. I was so excited that I picked up the kids and we stopped by the pond on the way home to see if she was still there - my son caught her bustin' a move from the path into the water. Score!

5.01 miles, 37:21 (7:28 avg pace)

Thursday, June 8
EARLY RUN! Success. My only early run of the week. The cool air felt so good. AGAIN, I encountered a turtle on my run, albeit a MUCH larger one.

4.6 miles, 36:20 (7:54 avg pace)

Friday, June 9
Off day. I had an early morning eye doctor appointment and it was the last day of school!

Saturday, June 10
My kids participated in the Walleye Run in my hometown. They had a blast and my daughter ended up getting in the top 10 for girls. My son just missed last place. :) It was a hot weekend here in Wisco - temps were in the 90s both days. I ended up doing a short run after the kids were in bed.

3.26 miles, 24:28 (7:30 avg pace)

Sunday, June 11
My kids ended up sleeping in and so did we. It was glorious. (Sleeping in for us is 6:45am). I again ran when they were in bed. While I haven't really pushed the pace during these recovery weeks, I wanted to see if I could run fast so after a mile, I pushed to get 2 sub-7 miles in before a mile cool down. I think I might be ready to move out of the recovery zone.

4 miles, 28:07 (7:01 avg pace)

Total Weekly Miles: 20.4 miles

Sleep Data
I am still getting to bed way too late. As evidence by the fact that I am sleeping through all of my alarms. I am a little shy of the 8 hour mark, although I made some improvements from last week.

Saturday, June 10, 2017

I cannot explain how EXCITED I was to get selected to review the Adidas UltraboostX running shoes. I bought my first Adidas Boost running shoes a few years ago and loved them so much I bought them again and again. The UltraboostX features Boost technology (read: really responsive foam) and is less of a structured shoe than I am used to. The arch is an adaptive arch which is designed to conform to your foot to give you more of a customized feel. You can see the space under the arch in the side profile shot below - there really is no "shoe" there! The upper part of the shoe is made of Primeknit fabric which wraps around your whole foot. When you pull on the shoe, it feels like you are pulling on a sock - that is how clingy the upper part is. They hug my feet nicely and almost feel like an extension of my foot and not like I am wearing a "shoe".

I prefer to wear them with as "no-show" of a sock as you can get:

The shoes came in the mail just as I had entered the taper portion of my marathon training. I was nervous to try anything new during taper AND I was eager to test them out so I decided I would run one mile in them and then change into my other training shoes. They were so springy and comfy that I ended up running 2.4 miles in them before changing. My training shoes felt so clunky and heavy running in them right after the UltraboostX. I ran a few more easy training runs in the UltraboostX before the marathon.

The UltraboostX have been the star of my marathon recovery miles during the past several weeks. I have been wearing them every other run (normally I have a rotation of 3 to 4 shoes) and love how responsive they are. Next week starts my half-marathon training and I expect that they will be getting of play time in my shoe rotation.

The color I selected was blue/black/orange. Perfect complement to the beautiful WI lake above :)

Disclaimer: I received the Adidas UltraBoostX running shoes to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews! All opinions are my own and the links within this post do not provide any incentive to me personally, nor does your purchase of the product benefit me personally.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

The focus of my week last week was to continue recovery and start running again.

My legs felt decent and I just ran. I didn't look at my watch and just tried to log 30 minutes of running each time, with the exception of the day I had to run after work/before bus drop.

Monday, May 29
Memorial day! Traditionally we are at my in-laws lake house for Memorial Day weekend and this was no exception. It was the perfect place to kick start running after a week off. The morning was cool and sunny and I logged 4 miles and some change along the lake.

4.12 miles, 32:42 (7:56 avg pace)

Tuesday, May 30
Surprisingly, I was able to get up early to run before work without too much issue.

4.35 miles, 34:39 (7:58 avg pace)

Wednesday, May 31
Rest Day

Thursday, June 1
Set my alarm to get up early (5:00 AM) to log some miles before work but completely overslept so logged some afternoon miles before my daughter got off the school bus. IT WAS HOT.

3 miles, 22:36 (7:32 avg pace)

Friday, June 2
Sense alarm work me up at 4:46 AM. ARGH. I did get out of bed and get 4 miles in. My legs were tired. Needed a lot of coffee to make it through the day.

4.0 miles, 32:42 (8:10 avg pace)

Saturday, June 3
My goal was to get 5 miles in. It was thunder storming all morning so I headed out mid-afternoon in the bright hot sun, in very humid conditions.

5.0 miles, 38:11 (7:37 avg pace)

Sunday, June 4
Earlier in the week a colleague and I were discussing training plans for our fall races. It occurred to me that I hadn't figured out when I would need to start training for my fall half marathon. I want to use the Hanson's half marathon plan for this race, which is 18 weeks, so for me, that means training starts JUNE 11. SO SOON! I also have a 10K in less than 3 weeks. It was a big wake up call for me since I had always pushed those races out of my head since they were "so far away".

Because I was going to start training so much sooner than I had thought, I re-read the post-marathon recovery chapter in the Hansons book again on Saturday night. They advocate for two full weeks off, followed by 2 weeks of easy running. I took one week off so I decided that rather than push to get another run in this week, I would take Sunday off from running.

We were headed to the lake for the day and I took my son kayaking which was fun and we both enjoyed being on the water. It was a really hot day and being outside in the son made me extra hot so I decided it was a good idea to go waterskiing as well.

Even though I didn't get any running in, my body is definitely SORE after the combination of both of those activities!

Total Weekly Miles: 20.47 miles

Sleep Data
For reasons unknown to me, my Sense sleep system is working fine again. I have a whole week of sleep data! Maybe it also needed a week off.

My sleep was not great last week. I was staying up too late and attempting to get up early. I definitely need to get back into my 9 PM bedtime routine. My goal is to hit 8 hours as that seems to be the threshold where I don't feel so tired.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

The latest product I was sent to test was a pair of women's UV arm sleeves made by Buff - the same company that makes "the buff" headwear. Although I own two pairs of (non-Buff) arm sleeves, I have never used them. Prior to the arrival of the Buff arm sleeves I was thinking that it was getting too warm for these to actually be useful.

The sleeves arrived in my mailbox and it turns out these are made for warmer weather. Not only do the sleeves offer UV protection, but the wicking material they are made of is very soft, comfortable, and helps cool you down. They also have reflective properties which were helpful during my early morning runs.

I wore these for several of my final training runs prior to the Cellcom Green Bay marathon. They provided a perfect amount of warmth for cooler mornings where I did not feel the need to ditch them once my body warmed up. I also liked how they helped cool me down during a few of my warmer (70+ degrees and sunny) afternoon runs. Once the sweat hits them, they feel insta-cool!

The real test of the sleeves came during the actual marathon. The marathon weather was rainy, cloudy and 50 degrees at the start. So, on the cool side, particularly since I planned on wearing my crop top. I made the decision to wear the arm sleeves since I liked them during the training runs. I thought that I could easily pull them off and stash them in my shorts pockets (or hand them off to a family member) if they bothered me.

I never needed to worry about taking them off. Even though I forgot to cut out the tag on the one sleeve (visible in the photo below), nothing about them bothered me during the marathon and I would say they both kept me from being too chilly at the start, and helped me stay cool during the later miles when the rain let up and the sun came out (low 60s with sun at the finish). A bonus feature is that they made me easy to spot during the crowded lap of Lambeau Field.

I worked hard for a marathon PR so I'm not going to give all the credit of a good race to these sleeves, but they definitely helped in the temperature regulation arena!

My upper arm measurement was in between the S/M and M/L sizes. I ordered the M/L size and was a little nervous that the sleeves would not stay up. They ended up working great and stayed put through all of my runs, including the marathon. I liked that they were not super tight and clingy on my arms. I ordered the "Akira" pattern.

Disclaimer: I received the Buff UV arm sleeves to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews! All opinions are my own and the links within this post do not provide any incentive to me personally, nor does your purchase of the product benefit me personally.

Recent Race Photo

About Me

I am a 36-year old woman living in Wisconsin who loves to run. I work full time in the health care industry and have a husband and two young children. I originally developed this blog to keep myself motivated on a central goal I had after the birth of my second child: Qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon. After I checked that goal off the list, I used this blog to document my training and preparation for the 2016 Boston Marathon. Now that the marathon is over...I use the blog to continue documenting training and running-related aspects of my life. Thank you for reading! I love comments!